Blog Post #9

This week, I got The Book Thief  by Markus Zusak from the book swap.  I have read about 50 pages so far.  Let me just say that I am loving it.  Usually, I am not one to like third person type books, but this has kind of a mixed first and third person point of view which I think is very interesting.  I think that having the book all from third person would have been boring, and all from first person would have been too depressing.  I think that the narrator, a weird soul carrying after death person, has a perfect combination of telling you the facts, and having sympathy for poor Liesel.  I also enjoyed that in the prologue the narrator referred to the three different events with colors, and that the colors were different then what I would have assumed them to be.  I also loved that he put the different colors together to give the reader a great idea of the setting, time period and even some insight to the characters feelings about what is happening. 

Another thing that I really liked about the book is that every so often, the narrator pauses the story to give us: more information about the characters, an overview of what just happened, helps us recognize and connect with the different words of the time period, or just a general observation. 

Some Examples are:

• “SOME FACTS ABOUT ROSA HUBERMANN
  She was five feet, one inch tall and wore her
   browny gray strands of elastic hair in a bun.
  To supplement the Hubermann income, she did
  the washing and ironing for the five if the wealthier
  households in Molching.
   Her cooking was atrocious. 
  She possessed the unique ability to aggravate
  almost anyone she ever met. 
  But she did love Liesel Meminger. 
  Her way of showing it just happened to be strange. 
  It involved bashing her with wooden spoons and words
   at various intervals.” (35).
• “A SPECTACULARLY TRAGIC MOMENT
  A train was moving quickly.
  It was packed with humans.
  A six-year-old boy died in the third carriage.” (19).
• “A TRANSLATION
  Himmel = Heaven” (26).
• “AN OBSERVATION
  A pair of train guards.
  A pair of grave diggers. 
  When it came down to it, one of them called the shots.
   The other did what he was told. 
  The question is, what if the other is a lot more than the one?” (23).
  Yes, I did type that right.  This book seems to be philosophical too, among other things.

                I am very pleased with this book choice, and am not surprised that it is popular and was made into a movie.  I am very unhappy when I have to put it down, and can’t wait to read more. 

 I thought that this character sketch was very interesting.  Enjoy!